Vyan

Thursday, December 30

Tucker Douche-Spigot Carlson say MIchael Vick should have been Executed

It's one thing to reflexive find fault with the President of an opposing party purely for partisan gain, it's another to wish Death and Execution on someone who has been through the legal system, paid his debt to society, and is working Very Hard to make amends and put his life back in order.

Oh, that we could expect this kind of recovery and redemption from Lindsey Lohan? Or Paris Hilton? Or Michael Peters? Or Mel Gibson? Or Kanye West?

But no, one of the guys whose actually did go to jail and has been the right thing has to be the target of Tucker Carlson's later explosion of Douche-Nozzlery.



Carlson: Personally I think he should be executed... some things are unforgivable.

First of all it's been well documented that President Obama called the head of the Eagles to talk about Alternative Energy since the announcement that their stadium would be Entirely Run by Solar, Wind and Cogeneration - including 80 Wind Turbines and 2,500 Solar Panels - not to discuss Michael Vick's rehabilitation. But Obama is a sports fan, and Michael Vick is ALMOST on tr-ack to be the potential League MVP behind just Tom Brady, so it's just something that came up naturally in conversation that the President was supportive of the Eagle's effort to give him a second chance, that's all.

Nothing complicated, nothing ulterior or even political about it. Just "Nice job, Congrats".

To be far more Fair to Tucker than he's been to Vick, Carlson it turns out happens to be passionate on this issue because he's donates time and supports a Rescue Animal Shelter in Washington. via Anna Marie Cox.

Carlson is well known as an animal advocate. For the past couple years, he and Ana Marie Cox have served as spokespeople for the Washington Animal Rescue League, and in fact co-hosted a holiday party for the organization just this month.

“It’s the oldest animal rescue league in Washington,” Cox said. “It’s a no-kill shelter, which appeals to my bleeding heart liberalism, but it also accepts no government funding, which appeals to Tucker’s libertarianism.”

She and Carlson were approached by the league after the organization found her name in its database of supporters.

So he's invested in the subject. Interesting that he's not as investing in say ... Moose and Caribou Torture! (From Aaron Sorkin's: I'm Sure the Moose Had it Coming)

I eat meat, chicken and fish, have shoes and furniture made of leather, and PETA is not ever going to put me on the cover of their brochure and for these reasons Palin thinks it's hypocritical of me to find what she did heart-stoppingly disgusting. I don't think it is, and here's why.

Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals. I don't enjoy the fact that they're dead and I certainly don't want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn't do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.

I didn't see Outraged Animal Activist Tucker Carlson jumping onto Sorkin's side of the argument here, did you?

Sorkin even made the link between Palin and Vick quite direct:

I can make the distinctio­n between the two of us but I’ve tried and tried and for the life of me, I can’t make a distinctio­n between what you [Sarah Palin] get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I’m able to make the distinctio­n with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho s***heads accidental­ly shoots another one of you in the face

So, pardon me if I ride this Palin/Sorkin tangent for bit, before returning directly to Tucker and his douchy-ness - as you'll see - I have my reasons.

Now, while I may be loathe to defend Palin, and Lord Knows I've given her a hard time, but it's fair to point out that she actually shot a Caribou, not a Moose (or a Wolf from a Helicopter) and that they actually did harvest the meat and prepared it for future meals by storing it in their freezer contrary to Sorkin's article. She wasn't just hunting to cruelly kill animals, she was hunting for food for her family - and after earning only a measly $12 Million in the last 9 months with her ruthless relentless self-promotion, she's clearly on the verge of some lean times in the near future - so it's not like she was just polishing her rugged outdoorsy image with this "hunt", and it had anything to keep the duchets flowing into her pockets from those easily duped by her snake-oil act.

(Ok,ok - I admit about half of that was snark!)

A better criticism of Palin would have been that she was a SLOB HUNTER, using a Varmint Rifle that was under power for their target game, and that it's sights were off making her a danger to everyone else around.

When PETA takes issue with Sarah Palin it should come as no surprise to anyone. However, when a group of hunters complain about Palin that can be considered a bit more newsworthy. A Mediate article documents complaints from a group of hunters who argue that Palin violated gun safety protocol. Other hunters argued that video showed Palin had no real experience in hunting as she claims. They cited the following examples of Palin's alleged hunting ignorance:
The group departs from the trip without bothering to sight in Palin's rifle
Palin chose her "varmint rifle" to go caribou hunting - a mistake the group claims no serious hunter would make.

. Palin had someone else carry her rifle for her and load her shells.

. When handed her dad's rifle Palin asked "Does it kick?" According to the hunters the answer should be obvious to anyone familiar with that type of rifle.

. Palin immediately put her finger on the trigger of the "hot" rifle handed to her by her dad. The hunters argued that the finger should not be put on the trigger until the moment right before the shot is fired.

Because of Sorkin's comments I actually saw the episode and all this is true, but the one who picked the varmint rifle for Sarah (to avoid the kick) and didn't bother to check the sights on his gun or Sarah's was her Dad, Chuck Heath, the "avid experienced hunter". Sarah actually used their companion's gun for the shoot since she couldn't hit anything with either of the guns her dad brought.

On the other hand, just like the ridiculous blather we're likely to hear from Carlson as this issue heats up, Palin's counter-argument was even more hole-riddled, claiming that Sorkin had endorsed the killing of animals for fashion - this she said while sitting just five feet from a bear skin rug as shown in the clip below - and that Sorkin had no credibility on the issue because as a TV producer "Alan" - as she called him - must have written plenty of TV Shows and Movies that showed people shooting Other People with "high powered rifles".



Palin: I'll bet in his shows he's had some of the self-same high-powered rifles used - only they were pointed at people, not animals.

He said it would be ok, if it were for "Fashion" and I was shocked, I couldn't believe he would be so hypocritical to suggests it "Ok" to kill an animal for it's fur.

Sorry Sarah, Sorkin didn't hold himself up as the paragon of veganite hyper-morality, but he also didn't say anything about "Fashion" or "Fur". Hunting he understands. Meat he eats. But was this really about "sustainance" or was it a "snuff" clip for tv ratings?

Palin here makes a common claim made by those on the Right as they support the Gun Lobby and Hunters while pointing a cold accusing finger of Gun Violence Monger-y at Hollywood, but does the charge stick this time?

As a writer-producer of The West Wing for it's first four seasons - penning 87 teleplays himself - the few episodes of that showed gunplay involved a near assassination of President Bartlett (Season 1 Finale: "What Kind of Day it's Has Been") by skinheads attempting to kill his aide Charlie because he was a black man dating the Presidents (White) daughter, a sequence that was based on the actual shooting of President Reagan and like that event left the President and one of his aides wounded. (One wonders which side of the weapons Palin and her ilk would have been as they brought the ostensibly Liberal President Bartlet into their sights?)



C.J. Cregg Press Briefing on the Shooting of Bartlett and Josh Lyman and Gun Violence.



Later in the series there was the shooting of Secret Service Agent Simon Donovan (played by Mark Harmon) in the episode "Posse Comittatus" while he was off duty and intervened during a convenience store robbery, and lastly the Episode "Commencement" (Sorkin's Next to Last on the Show) where that exact same Bartlet daughter, Zoey, was kidnapped and where a Secret Service Agent Molly O'Connor, the namesake for Toby Zeigler's daughter, was killed.

Sorkin's other TV shows include the short-lived Studio 60 on Sunset Strip about a Saturday Night Live-ish Comedy/Commentary show. Two seasons writing the Comedy Sports Night, writing both the successful Stage Play and Film A Few Good Men about the deliberate ordering and cover-up of an under-performing Marine to be Tortured by his fellow troops in Guantanamo Bay Cuba ("You want the truth, you can't handle the Truth!") and Charlie Wilson's War about the involvement of a U.S. Congressman in the 80's proxy War against the Soviet Union via Afghanistan. Another of his better known films includes The American President where this immortal speech is given...



President Andrew Shepard: For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was, to a certain extent, about character, and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character.

For the record: yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. But the more important question is why aren't you, Bob? Now, this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question: Why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the Constitution?

If you can answer that question, folks, then you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a few hours ago.

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free".

Possibly the best Presidential Speech, that isn't an Actual Presidential Speech ever written, in which he calls for a 20 Percent Reduction in Fossil Fuel use to prevent Global Warming and a serious restrictions on hand guns and assualt weapons. And that was in 1995! This is what Aaron Sorkin is known for, not being a hack exploiting sensationalist gun-violence for it's shock value or it's prurient voyeurism.

It's not like he's Jerry Bruckheimer or the Guy who Wrote Road House 2, Yeah, there really was a Road House 2.

If you don't know this speech, you don't know Aaron Sorkin and I've belabored this point because this movie and this speech was specifically about the exploitation of a Phony Controversy about widower President Sheppard's romance with a lobbyist and how that was a Distraction from his Official Duties. Kinda reminds you of the current of this current phony controversy of President Obama daring to Talk Sports with a Sports Team Owner, doesn't it?

Palin is Senator Bob Rumson, with a wink, a twinkle in her eye and poorly sighted varmint rifle under her arm. And Tucker carries her carcass for her.

If the question is what kind of character Obama has displayed by praising the efforts of the Eagle's owners in reaching for Hope, rather than cynicism, in praising Vick's efforts to strive for a better future than wallow mired in a despicable past - I would argue that Obama had shown that he certainly possesses and embodies Character over and above the thin veneer of fake partisan puritanism and opportunism coming from Palin, Carlson and Fox.

Now, in fairness one could argue that Sorkin, while on contract with Castle Rock Entertainment did write another shooting into his screenplay for the thriller Malice were the villain played by Nicole Kidman shoots her accomplice Alec Baldwin when he himself refuses to commit murder to cover up their crimes. IMO If you can say anything about how Aaron Sorkin has depicted gun violence it seems that every shooting he's ever written, that I've found, involved Bad Guys Shooting Good Guys - which is what make them "Bad Guys" I would assume - and isn't exactly a rousing endorsement of gun violence. It's a subject he addressed, but not as an naive advocate (or a so-called "hunter" who doesn't know basic safety). With these few incidents over the course of 5 movies and hundreds of hours of TV, it's pretty clear that it's very far his normal fair of thought provoking drama with dashes of social comedy, including the current hit movie The Social Network.

One last comment to close out this point, all of these fictional shootings involved hand guns not "High Powered Rifles" with one lone exception. During the same Episode where Agent Donovan is killed, Posse Comittatus President Bartlet authorizes the military assassination of Foreign Diplomat Adbul Shareef after it is confirmed that he was working to aid terrorists groups who had conducted attacks against the U.S. via NSA wiretaps, an action that has serious repercussions to the Barlett Presidency.



Somehow I would bet that the Sarahcuda would have been doing her best "Rah Rah, USA #!" cheerleading during the portion of the episode where Navy Seals attack Shareef's plane. To his credit Bartlet only resorts to these methods because Shareef has diplomatic immunity and is beyond the reach of the U.S. Legal System, and he also never even tried to Pretend this wasn't a War Crime. He knew it was wrong, he also knew he had no other viable choice.

Exploiting the use guns, hunting or assault rifles for murder are NOT Sorkin's stock in trade as a movie and film maker - when he's written about it he's done so with depth and care toward the consequences of violence - and even if it were, this would justify animal cruelty how?

But did we hear even a peep from Mr. fTucker (pronounced naturally with a silent "T") about any of this, while the Palin/Sorkin argument was ricocheting around the web like batch of unleashed Flubber Balls or was he just too busy trying to Steal Keith Olbermann's Domain Name and send prank Emails pretending to be Keith to be outraged by Palin's rank, callous acts of animal cruelty for the sake of burnishing her "Frontier Chick" Cred?

I can understand having a pet issue like abused animals as Tucker has, but the idea there's any possible legitimacy for thinking the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for animal cruelty, but yet thinking that crimes such as taking a nation to war on bogus evidence, murdering thousands of innocent (human) civilians and committing multiple counts of war crimes and torture which resulted in SAVING NO ONE, funneling $Billions to contractors who ended up killing and poisoning our own soldiers, don't even deserve a hearing in contrast is the absolute Height of self-aggrandized narcissism.

Tucker's pet cause deserves the Death Penalty over all the others because - Tucker said so, see? That all cleared up?

And as it turns out just like his lack of response to Caribou-gate and the Snow-Billy, Tucker has been quite restrained in his criticism of contracting out your war atrocities as he explained on Real Time in 2007.

Tucker: You can't go anywhere in Iraq without them (Blackwater), the military is not going to protect you.

Maher: There's have been over 200 incidents (of Blackwater shootings).

Paul Krugman: These guys drew weapons on American Soldiers, that was last year.

Tucker: If that's true - why did they get another contract the year after that?

Maher:If there were a bunch of mercenaries over in this country - say Iranians - and they shot up an intersection in the middle of Phoenix, wouldn't we call that terrorism?

Tucker: Well, we'd be offended by it.

Offended? Offended! Really, Ya think?

People Murdering Blackwater we need, (former) Dog Murderer (and potential Hall of Famer) Michael Vick we don't. Sure. Fine. Makes perfect sense.

Then there's the idea that the President shouldn't comment on current events, which is simply bizarre. Tucker and his cohorts spend most of the segment lambasting the President for his "weird" penchant for "bringing subjects like this up". Subjects like Park 51 or the the Arrest of Skip Gates. In the process they ignore the President was asked specifically about those two situations and simply answered the questions, or the fact that Park 51 isn't a "Mosque at Ground Zero" it's an interfaith prayer center with spaces for all types of worship, including a 9-11 Memorial, which makes perfect sense to have near the 9/111 Site. Also, saying the "Police Acted Stupidly" is rather mild considering the fact that Officer Crowley Repeatedly Falsified his Police Report to cover up the mendacity of his treatment of Skip Gates.

But who expects "Truth" on Fox anyway?

Carlson on Vick, the Rich guy:

Carlson: He's some creepy rich overpaid football player.

This coming from Tucker whose a trust fund baby - son of the Swanson Foods Heiress - who'se already been fired from Two of the Major Cable News Networks (CNN & MSNBC)? Overpaid Rich Creep? Yah. How about Pampered Prissy Talentless Partisan Hack Assclown Much? As a point of fact, Vick took a severe pay cut this season just for the opportunity to play, and had to pay the Atlanta Falcons $6.5 Million to be released and settle his bankruptcy.

We get all this self-righteous indignation about the law and honor from a guy whose Daddy WhoreBucks is on the Board for the Scooter Libby Defense Fund?

This guy gets credibility on the issue Rich Creeps who Shirk the Legal System from where exactly? His navel lint?

One last thing: fTucker on the issue of Michael Vick eventually becoming a spokesman for animal rights.

Tucker: It's like having the Donnor Party be a spokesman for for vegetarianism. Two years is nothing. People who cheated on their taxes,.. people who under-reported their tips have gotten more time (Than Vick) .

I'll be honest, I think dog-fighting and deliberate animal cruelty is about as psychologically evil and being a burgeoning serial killer, - it's vicious and cruel, but on the scale comparing someone who massively Fucked UP in their life - and have had chance after chance to redeem and reclaim their honor and self-respect - it may be premature, but at this point in time I'd take Michael Vick over TrustFund fTucker S. Carlson Esq. by a mile and a half.

Vyan